


Simulacrum

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Series: Requests/challenges/etc [8]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Post Grail quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Simulacrum – noun – an image or representation of someone of something; an unsatisfactory imitation of substitute
Relationships: Percival/Mordred
Series: Requests/challenges/etc [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673452
Kudos: 12





	Simulacrum

A promise, one spoken only in whispers, the shadows cast by the flickering candles their only witnesses. Words holding a faith he'd never felt himself, not for God or man, but when the other Knight spoke them, he found that, just maybe, he could find something akin to the faith the other one carried as if it were not a burden.

A grail, one of legend, one older than Camelot herself, was to be retrieved. He did not care for specifics, only that those who had tried before had failed, never to be seen from again.

A quest, one from God Himself, one the other Knight could not shy away from or postpone.

A pair, one comprised of traveling companions, neither so pure of heart and soul but, he supposed, the best of the lot the other Knight had to choose from.

A wait, one so long and so painful that he cursed every decision he had ever made, for better and for worse, a time of wondering which choices he should have made different, which forks in the road would forever be left unexplored.

A longing, one fueled by everything he had left unsaid, making his waking hours torture and his sleeping hours empty.

A starvation, one of touch that could not be quelled by either Knight or whore he took to bed to fill the nights he wanted _him_ to fill instead.

A possibility, one that told him that, once the wait was over, he would finally get what he'd longed for, he would finally know what the Grail Knight felt like under his palms.

A tongue, one that he normally utilized to get himself where ever he wanted, when ever he wanted, now bit to the point of bleeding to keep from crying out the name of the one he actually wanted as he spent his seed inside of people whose names, faces, sounds blurred together.

A message-bearer, one he would have rather found his end by bandits such that the Court could have carried on waiting rather than have known the truth.

A drink, one that was never going to stop at just two, morphing into so many that he lost count, the wine skin emptied, its contents never diluted, as he tried to scrub the last bit of faith and hope that had the audacity to sink its claws into his bones from its unstable home.

A return, one missing the only person he'd wanted to see, one so lacking the only Knight he had managed to find any respect or affection for, met by the rest of the court with a celebration of having _achieved the Grail_ to give them cover from their own sorrows.

A Knight, one about his age, returned from the Grail Quest despite the other one, the one spoken only in mocking whispers, which he had failed once before, broken and devastated on the surface in a way that told anyone who knew how to look that he was shattered all the way through.

An idea, one that told him this other Knight may yet be able to give him what he longed for, if nothing else than by proxy.

A destiny, one painted over the lives of both the Knight he'd wanted for years and would never see again in life and the Knight he now had readjusted his sights to settle on, with just enough overlap that he figured, maybe, hopefully, the other Knight would be enough to stem the bleeding that had no physical wound to treat.

A proposition, one the other Knight agreed to readily, so desperate to feel something besides the empty sorrow that he could not shake on his own.

A Quest, this one taking them to his rooms, to his bed, into each other.

A surrender, one of desperation, the other Knight pliant under him, so needy, so loud, every point of contact almost unbearably hot as he buried himself to the hilt in this other Knight who was, in fact, nothing like the one who had actually achieved the Grail.

A name, one screamed by the other Knight as he jolted into his own orgasm, not his name, but rather the name of the Knight they were both, apparently, trying to replace, to find a substitute for.

A strike, one born of anger than dissolved into sorrow the instant the sound of the thing echoed, then shifted again into rage when the other Knight left without another word.

A sorrow, one not accompanied by any other modifiers, leaving him to wallow in his own empty head for days before he was able to join the others around the table, for meals, for training.

A routine, one born of a need to ignore what his life had become, that never settled in his heart, that he never let settle in his bones, having learned the consequences of letting anything sink that deep.

A name, one that was his own this time, uttered as an apology without excuse or explanation.

A question, one that found them both back in his bed, the other Knight just as pliant as the first time, just as needy, just as loud, just as different from the Knight they both would have rather had.

A shout, his own name this time, as the other Knight dirtied his bedding.

A simulacrum, one that he knew would never become a satisfactory replacement for what he actually wanted, but still a thing he could project his losses onto.


End file.
